The "fixed" promotion, the corruption and the match fixing. How the Football League does business

There was a rather strange comment on our sister site Untold Arsenal this week in which an Aston Villa fan said that Arsenal supporters have no right to comment on Villa when in fact Arsenal had bribed their way into the first division in 1919.

I must admit I thought that the old Tiny Totts propaganda on that topic had been put to bed a long time ago and that supporters didn’t just repeat the old line. But it seems not.

So although the prime business of this site is Arsenal 100 years ago I’ll deviate a little and give some background into Arsenal’s last ever promotion to the First Division, in 1919.

In the final pre-war season, the First and Second Divisions of the Football League were made up of 20 clubs each, as they had been since the last upgrade at the end of the 1904/5 season.

Everyone wanted more games so it was agreed to increase each division by two clubs, thus creating four more games per club. (There was no third division at this time – that came quite a bit later).

The first thing the League did was look back to the summer of 1905 – the last upgrade. At the AGM in that year the bottom two teams of the first division (Bury and Notts County) did not go down, and the top two of the second division (Liverpool and Bolton) went up.

That left Division II with 16 clubs so four more were needed. However Doncaster Rovers who came bottom of Division II were not re-elected by the other clubs, and so five new clubs were elected – including Chelsea who were given a place even though they had no club, no team, no supporters and had never even played a match in the Southern League – the normal feeder league.

This approach of manipulating promotions was well established and went on most years with teams being de-selected, and others being brought in, not because of outstanding playing merit (there was no Chelsea and they had never played a game) but because of football politics.

The five new clubs were Chelsea, Hull, Leeds, the Orient, and Stockport. Two London and three from the north – with the London clubs refusing to allow anything less than two of their number through.

This regional argument was always there, because the League had been formed exclusively as a northern and midlands activity. Arsenal were the first southern team into the League in 1893.

Because new admissions to the League were voted on by the clubs, and because the clubs from the north and midlands had a continual majority, they constantly tried to keep the southern clubs out, claiming that London teams should play in the Southern League.

They had voted Woolwich Arsenal in because of the earlier notion of making the league a National League, but quickly went off the idea, and named their annual trip to Kent as “the weekend in Hell”.

In fact the only other southern teams to get into the League was Luton Town in 1897 and Bristol City in 1901. And this despite the fact that London was the biggest city in the world at the time.

To show how biased this was, consider Tottenham. Tottenham actually won the FA Cup in the Southern League – but still couldn’t get into the Football League, and while as Arsenal fans we might enjoy that fact, when we set our feelings aside we must admit that it was outrageous block voting by the north and midlands at work as usual.

So at the time of the 1905 expansion the clubs in London made it clear they had had enough, and two more London teams joined the ranks to avoid a split. But bad feeling remained, and by the time of the 1919 AGM and the proposal to increase the number of teams per league to 22, everyone knew there was going to be another dog fight.

In the last pre-war season, Tottenham and Chelsea were in the bottom two relegation spots in Division I. Derby and Preston were first and second (the promotion spots) in Division II.

Tottenham and Chelsea were ready to argue that as in 1905 they should stay up, despite ending in the relegation zone, but the northern clubs didn’t want to help London’s clubs, and would have been much happier without any London clubs in the First Division (which would have been the case if those two had gone down).

But this time there was another factor: match fixing, primarily involving Manchester United and Liverpool. They fixed an end of season match so Man U won and so ended up with one more point that Chelsea and so avoided relegation.

So Chelsea put up a new argument which said Manchester United and Liverpool should be thrown out of the League.

This caused panic, not just because they were big clubs, but because it would mean that the League would have to admit in public that matches had been fixed. (Everyone knew this – match fixing was wholesale, but until then had been swept under the carpet).

When the feeling of the meeting was clearly “no” to this step Henry Norris moved in, as chairman of Arsenal. He reminded the meeting of how the London teams had done their bit for professional sport, and how Woolwich Arsenal had defied the FA in becoming the first professional team in the south.

When this approach brought snears from Manchester United and Liverpool, the southern clubs, and those in the rest of the league who had suffered at the hands of the match fixing cartel started to build a bloc and it began to look as if instead of building into an even stronger league of 44 clubs, the league would split in two – with the midlands clubs looking to join forces with the London teams to make a league of their own.

If the League as a whole would not hear of the match fixing clubs being punished then it had only one compromise to offer – a “rearrangement” of the promotion and relegation issues for the expansion of the league.

They needed two more clubs for Division I and three more for Division II (Glossop North End choosing not to continue in the League).

First they re-elected Chelsea back into the First Division, on the grounds that if Liverpool and Man U had not been bent, they would have stayed up anyway. Tottenham who came bottom were relegated as they had no claim to a place because of any match fixing and still had few friends in the League.

There was also universal acceptance that the top two from Division II should go up – Deby and Preston, and this was agreed. This left Division I a team short.

This is when Norris made his play. He pointed out that although quite rightly Chelsea had not suffered because of the match fixing, the two clubs involved were still not being punished, and he would not accept this. If he left the meeting with them still in the first division, he argued, he would use his extensive political power (he had been knighted at the end of the war, and elected to parliament) to force government action against the corrupt Football League who “encouraged” gambling and corruption.

With the northern clubs absolutely refusing to budge, the League hierarchy then did a secret deal. Arsenal would be voted into the final place in the first division and one new London club would get into to Division II (West Ham). Coventry, Gateshead, Rotherman and Stoke made up the numbers.

So it was done. The argument of course is, should the southern clubs have broken away and exposed the League as the corrupt outfit it was, and has been for much of its life? Possibly, but Norris had invested his fortune in building Highbury, and clearly was not going to throw that away.

The evil of the match fixing remained, and Man U and Liverpool went unpunished, knowing they could do what they liked with impunity. If Tony Blair had been alive and interested he would have said that a line should be drawn under the events and we should move on. It was that sort of deal.

Hi Tony,
nice post and we still have that corruption and match fixing in today game. especially eufa and fifa, those people are nothing but damaging the sport we love with their greed of power and money.

There was another factor at work… Tottenham (unlike Arsenal)were NOT a “London” club. They were and still were until 1965, a Middlesex club. The powers that be stated that they were not allowed to talk on behalf of “London clubs” and they could piss off down to the second division! That’s definitely something they don’t brag about.

[…] Norris was knighted for his services to the state during the first world war and then took us back into the first division in 1919. This act has been vilified by Tottenham supporters who have managed to grab our history and re-write it for their own ends. However as the Woolwich Arsenal analysis of the events show, Arsenal were far from being the villains of the piece. You can read the whole story here. […]

Spurs were no more or no less a Middlesex club than Your lot.
The 3 County towns of Middlesex are Clerkenwell,Westminster and Brentford
2 of which are closer to the City of London(the only part of London to have always been so) than N5(or indeed N7)
Read old papers reports of games, we are always refered to as north London(certainly since the early part of the 20th Century anyway)The N17 post code was in place back then as well.To say we were considered anyless a london club than you is laughable.So by your reconing,chelsea werent either?
just another bit of bitterness due to the fact that your History started in in saarf London
Highbury was ,is and always will be(like Tottenham) in the ancient County of Middlesex.
Interesting site this though,credit where credits due

The last use of (enfield and parts of greater London west aside0 was 65,as was pointed out. But the fact remains that all of London outside the city walls(which itself is in Middlesex despite being given political independance)north of the thames west of the lea was in Middlesex.Look at things like the Middlesex guild hall,Middx hospital and indeed the county ground Lords.
This “we’re more London than you is really slumming it”
Q1 F*8king awful, was 8 years old ,broke me heart.hope never to have to go through it again.
Q2 Real football fans enjoy winning whatever trophies, wouldnt be first on my list ,but i wont knock it.
Q3 Already answered and explained
Q4 Tell me a London club who’s fans dont call themselves that?
Q5 Pathetic,as explained (Are West ham not a London club as well??)And Should you not be called “pride of Sarf London…Or was it kent back then”
Q6 I get sick of all football a on sky truth be told,its killed the Game.And that Music just reminds me of the fact.

Arsenal finished 6th in Division Two at the end of 1914/15 although they should have finished 5th due to a miscalculation in goal average. The first world war then intervened. As far as the Football League were concerned prior to football resuming again in 1919 Arsenal had finished 6th.

It was due to Henry Norris that Arsenal were elected to Divsion One for the 1919/20 season.

Even if Arsenal had finished 3rd in 1914/15 they wouldn’t have been automatically promoted as only two teams are promoted and relegated between the top two divisions until the mid 1970s.

All this arguing about who belongs where and who started where amazes me does it matter,some would say yes but Arsenal have fans far and wide they are one of the biggest clubs in the world we have history years and years of history, fans and supporters dont all live in north london the ones who do travel from outside of London to support and follow their life long club,they would at times love the EMS to be in their home town so they can support easier, north london is not the most attractive place in the world, me being an east ender realises that my part is probably worse, but now i’m in hertfordshire and i would love the EMS to be there, we were lucky to find a site to build our stadiam still close to where we were before and a lot closer from where we came from before, the idea of moveing from Highbury was Financial and probably the same from Woolwich, you support the greatest team in the world whether in north london or anywhere else, its the club not the place.

The usual Arsenal bias. How come if Norris was so good he was banned from football for life for bribing players to his club? He also upset locals with his aggresive moving in to the area of Highbury. The dig at Liverpool is unwarrented as Smith,who was on the board at Liverpool, the FL chairman was a buddy of Norris & worked hand in hand to get them a chance of election to the top flight. The fact Arsenal only finished 5th in the 2nd division was ignored. The biased writings of a lot of Arsenal fans on here proves the point that they have always been the most one eyed viewers of football. Ironically they have a one eyed manager today in Arsene Wenger.

The book is inaccurate in its biased writing. Liverpool & Manu were fined for match fixing.
Norris was known to be corrupt for years & was a Fulham supporter who saw a chance to gain some publicity. Arsenal were promoted after a lot of prompting,kindest word i could use, from Smith the FL Chairman who happened to be on Liverpools board & was ‘connected’ to helping Norris get his wish.
Spurs were told they would not be relegated as the Division one was being expanded to 22 teams. If anyone should have been relegated it should have been Manu & Liverpool for match fixing.
Why have Arsenal always been known as ‘Lucky’ Arsenal & cheating Arsenal? It has been sang at many of the premiership clubs even today. A lot of the clubs & fans in the 1920s & 1930s refered to Arsenal with the same contempt.
You would think the way Arsenal fans & their club speak today that they are the most honest club in history. Good luck with Usmanov! your going to need it.

Tony Hill’s comments are interesting in that they are presented without any reference back to the evidence. There’s no mention of the articles in Athletic News in 1919 for example, which is a major source of evidence, nor of Henry Norris previous reporting of a fixed Liverpool game, in the 1913/14 season. The suggestion that Norris upset the locals in Islington is right, but only up to a point – the Highbury Defence League was active, but then there was a second group, just as active, supporting the move. Indeed in the weeks after the start of the 1913/14 season the local papers were full of comments about how the crowd dissipated very quickly after the game.

There is no mention of all the other elections to and from leagues in the years leading up to 1919 which are highly relevant if the issue of Arsenal’s 5th position is to be considered. There is some evidence that the board of Liverpool supported Arsenal, but there is also some evidence that Norris was keen that the match fixing scandal should not be forgotten.

But perhaps mostly the writer, like most Tottenham supporting writers, makes no reference to the fact that Arsenal got more than half the votes in a ballot involving seven clubs who applied for that promotion.

I am always willing to admit that I have got things wrong in the history of Arsenal, and have done so many times on this site, and have often been corrected (just see the comments Andy Kelly has made on my work for example!) but my writing on Arsenal’s history is based on research and if it is to be contradicted some evidence should be supplied.

Certainly the comments about Norris in general are just silly without taking into account the context of the Norris/Humble directorship of the club from 1910 to 1927. Or come to that Norris’ political views, as made clear when he stood for Parliament in 1918 and was elected for the coalition government.

What should or should have not happened is irelivant now. The fact remains is that at the time of 1919 all was fixed. You can not change the past. Just make sure it does not happen again. But football is slow to stop this. Ask sepp!

Henry Norris, the businessman who created ‘Arsenal’, was banned for life from football in February 1929. He was banned for corruption.

He created the ‘football club’ as a money-making enterprise. Hence his attempts to merge the two clubs he owned, Arsenal and Fulham.

So, a corrupt businessman creates a money-making enterprise, one which creates an image of itself which ignores its own corruption and murky beginnings, and gullible members of the public part with their money in order to become a part of this enterprise.

L. Ron Hubbard created Scientology. Joseph Smith created Mormonism. Henry Norris created Arsenal.
“There’s a sucker born every minute”

Trigger’s Broom – quoting tiny bits of a story and then trying to make something of it, tends to reflect more on you that anything you write. If you want to put forward the story of Norris and his banning for football, you need to provide more detail than that.

But here’s a little to help you. Norris, having risked his personal fortune three times with Arsenal (in the 1910 takeover in paying off the debts, in the 1913 building of the new stadium, and the 1925 restructuring of the club under Chapman, did indeed break the rules by taking a tiny fraction of this money out of the club (about £400 in total I seem to recall) – which was against the rules. Directors, irrespective of how much they put into the club, could take nothing out.

But the “crime” in no way merited the life ban. He got that punishment because during his time in football he took on the Football League, over the issue of the Liverpool and Man U match fixing scandal in 1915. The League desperately wanted that swept out of the way, but in 1919 Norris brought it up again, and the League never forgave him.

Likewise Norris took on the Daily Mail, whose pro-Nazi views he thoroughly opposed (just look at Nirruis; election manifesto in 1918 with its desire for pensions for all returning from the war, equal pay for women, support for industry and cutting rail fares in half). Norris sued the Mail for libel, and when he unexpectedly lost, the League and FA swooped in and got their revenge.

There’s no doubt that Norris should not have paid himself the £400, but punishment ought to have fitted the crime. But football authorities don’t work like that.

If there is a sucker born every minute (which is not a philosophy I follow) then one of them is surely you for swallowing the line about Norris constantly pumped out by the Nazi supporting Mail of the era, the League and the FA.

“There’s A Sucker Born Every Minute” is not a philosophy, it’s the business strategy used by the corrupt individuals I referenced.

If you can’t see that Arsenal was created by Norris, not as a sporting endeavour, but merely as a business venture then it just re-confirms the notion that there really is a sucker born every minute.

Norris wanted to make money from gullible members of the public, in just the same way that Stan Kroenke wants to.
No amount of Old-Etonians, Marble Halls and stadium banners declaring “You Can’t Buy Class” can disguise the fact that Arsenal was created as a money-making scheme by a corrupt businessman. That is its sole raison d’etre.
However, if you’re a loyal customer of Arsenal, this truth must obviously be distinctly unpalatable for you.

Your being so defensive about the facts and history surrounding Norris and Arsenal is pretty much the same attitude taken by Scientologists or Mormons; and we all know that to some, football is indeed a religion.

Norris’ life-ban from football by the FA is a good indication of the man’s character. (Read the FourFourTwo article entitled ‘Henry Norris: The Man Who Would Be King At Arsenal’ for reference)

Next time you buy a ticket at ‘The Emirates’ you might want to have a think about just what it is you’re actually buying into.

Trigger, as the only person who has written books about Henry Norris I think I know quite a lot about him, and I was certainly involved in uncovering the information on why he took over Arsenal in 1910, and in exposing the errors in the stories that have circulated since then. Citing a single article, which I do know, to the guy who has written the only books that analyse Norris’ action in football, without any evidence to back up your claims, is just plain silly.

You cite no new evidence, nor indeed any evidence, apart from an article which itself contained no new evidence, and then draw conclusions. The notion that Norris saw buying Woolwich Arsenal as a business venture is just utterly bizarre when you look at what actually happened in 1910 and thereafter.

I will give you just one of the many new bits of information that the research about Norris during the writing of the two books came up with. At the meeting at the League’s AGM, which is covered in both “Making the Arsenal” and “Woolwich Arsenal” it is a matter of official record that Norris agreed to keep Woolwich Arsenal at Plumstead for one more season, while he offered shares in the club to anyone wanting them at £1 each. He did this resolutely, and then when the supporters would not take up the offer, extended the stay to three years, even though the club was losing horrific amounts of money, which he underwrote throughout.

Or the fact that whereas today when clubs go bust, the new owners just pay out the “football debts”, Norris, although he didn’t have to, paid up all the debts – including the debt on the building of the stand at the Manor Ground, which was owed to Archi Leitch.

These are just two of the details that need to be considered. All you do is talk in generalities and cite an article that contains no original research and then seek to insult the guy who was a central part of the team that actually did the research on Norris. It really does seem a most curious way to behave.

And that’s before you wander from writing about Norris to links with the current Arsenal set up. There is no link. Norris was highly critical of the regieme that took over at Arsenal after he and Jack Humble resigned as directors, and the AGM records and newspaper reports of the time covered what he said.

Norris was a working class guy who left school at 14, and fought his way up in Fulham. True he joined the Conservative Party, but as his election manifesto and speeches in the House of Commons show, he remained a man with strong feelings for the working classes; so strong in fact that his local Conservative Party disowned him in the end.

But such information is I think beyond you. My suggestion is that you go and do your own original research on Norris, and then come when you have some evidence rather than slurs and accusations.

So, when all the evidence points towards Henry Norris being just another corrupt Tory businessman, you’ve managed to paint him as some kind of football-philanthropist; Historical revisionism at its very finest.

Norris’ attempts to merge Arsenal with Fulham are just another indication of his renowned largesse, no doubt.

In your article you failed to include the fact that Norris, the man who created Arsenal, was banned for life from football by the F.A. for corruption.
No slurs or accusations could ever be as damning as that.

Trigger, I’ve continued to publish your replies not because you have anything of interest or anything new to say, but because you exemplify the approach that has been taken to reporting Arsenal’s history over the years. You bring in no evidence at all, and each time you are rebuffed by evidence you just move onto something else. I would only be guilty of historical revisionism if I was re-writing facts, which I certainly don’t do, as you would know if you bothered to read “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed history” which is the only complete history of Arsenal during the era to which you largely allude.

The issue of the Daily Mail legal case has been answered here, and if you wish to support the activities of a newspaper which at the time of the incident supported political movements which I abhor, then of course you can. Fortunately for me the club I support, and my family fought against such movements in Spain and in Europe at large.

Suddenly now you swap your movement to the merger with Fulham, once again without any evidence whatsoever – a regular ploy of yours and of the many others who have gone before you. Again given that I am the co-author of the only book ever to deal with the events of 1910 in depth I can claim a certain knowledge of this.

The information in the WA book is the most complete there is, and it reveals exactly what Norris proposed at the Football League AGM, what the League said, and how Norris replied on that day. It also gives the state of WA at the time, and Norris’ plan.

You have ignored all this – if you actually have a clue what was going on – and that is actually rather like Tottenham the club that I presume from your email address that you support. The League re-iterated a very important ruling at that meeting about where clubs play – showing that the ruling they had given over Millwall a few months earlier would stand. It was a meeting at which Tottenham were represented. But unfortunately Tottenham “forgot” that ruling just three years later when they sought to block the move of Woolwich Arsenal to North London – a move that was doomed to failure because of the ruling, re-iterated as I say when Norris made his proposal.

As I say, all this information is available in the WA book, complete with numerous citations from original sources, and I really don’t think there is any benefit to you, to me, or to our readers in furthering the correspondence. I have given you three chances to come up with some evidence to back up any of your claims and accusations.

You prefer to throw out these accusations against a man who was commended repeatedly for his work for his country during the first world war, and was honoured for that work, while writing in praise of the far right newspaper that sought to bring Norris down. That’s your view, and I have mine.

I think we’ve explored this as far as we can go, and three chances for you to put evidence rather than accusation is enough I feel. You have your views and I have mine. thank you for putting your points, I am sorry we cannot get anywhere closer together on this. I am sure however that there are many sites around that are very receptive to your ideas.